HYDERABAD: From doodling anime characters from shows such as Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon, Beyblade and comic books on his house walls as a kid, to being paid for doing so on much bigger walls as an adult, multidisciplinary and urban street artist Abhedya Bhagawan has come a long way.
You must have chanced upon his work while travelling around the city. He has painted a wall on Necklace Road, at what is called Maqta Art District. He has also painted a wall at the co-living accommodation space called Boston Living in Kondapur. Abhedya has also done wall paintings for Greese Monkey, a pub that will soon open up in Jubilee Hills.
“I want the culture of street art to grow in Hyderabad because there is so much art here. There are so many upcoming urban cultures such as hip-hop, skateboarding and stickers which are artistic. We can become the next cultural capital because Hyderabad is such a beautiful city with such amazing artists,” says the 25-year-old.
Street art is bold, bright and breaks away from the shackles of traditional fine art, says Abhedya. “The college in which I was studying architecture also had a fine arts department. Those people have been painting the same thing since God knows how many years,” he says.
Though both graffiti and street art are considered synonymous, the latter is more planned and often commissioned by an organisation, while the other is more about ‘writing’ and is ‘unplanned, impulsive, comes from the heart and is out in the public view’, says Abhedya. Often, a graffiti can land you in legal trouble in various countries, but in India, the artist says, the laws are a bit vague and hence a graffiti is not considered illegal.
“Graffiti artists also use aliases to remain anonymous and create something in public spaces for an interaction with the people. Sometimes, their art is politically charged. They also demonstrate their skills with the ‘tags’ that they paint,” he says. The elusive Banksy from the UK and Tyler from Mumbai are some of the artists who have risen to prominence through their anonymous and revolutionary, politically charged art. Abhedya focuses more on urban street art. He likes using bold and brighter colours, and characters in his art than writing itself.
“While street art can send out the same message as a graffiti, the latter is a little more ‘revolting’,” he says. He has used his learning from having worked with Redbull, the Delhi non-profit St+art India and artists such as Sadhu X from Nepal to develop his skills.
“Santanu Hazarika and Sadhu X have influenced my style of art, but there’s always an Abhedya touch to it! Through Santanu’s work, I learned about filling spaces because his work is super detailed. Sadhu X taught me a lot about patterns, using bright colours and caricature designs. But I am also ‘curving’ my art in a particular way, that gives it a unique style,” he says.
Abhedya had recently held a graffiti workshop fo which he got an overwhelming response. He has many projects in the pipeline, and has even started to put his artwork up for auction as non-fungible tokens (NFT).